The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (9 page)

“You have trailed Jasper Forth like a puppy dog, is more like it. And now look what's happened to the poor man.”

“Can't you just see the headlines? ‘Herringford and Watts stomp out the Morality Squad!' ”

Jem threw up her hands. “ ‘Herringford and Watts get thrown in jail!' ”

“ ‘Herringford and Watts become Toronto's premiere investigators!' ”

“Herringford and Watts better get fed soon or Watts won't be long for their new enterprise.”

Merinda stuck her tongue out. Jem stuck out hers in answer. Still, despite herself, Jem couldn't help but grin.

Toronto had no idea what it was in for.

*
Merinda Herringford's deductive powers failed to stretch far enough to recognize the possibility that while Jem had every intention of returning Ray DeLuca's watch and coat, the journal had winnowed its way into her heart and was worth far more to her than a few interesting notes from his muckraking stint in the Don Jail.

CHAPTER FIVE

Toronto is an endless maze. Even its most adventurous citizen may never completely unravel every one of its corners and nooks. I try, as any intrepid reporter might, to follow the heartbeat of the city. But where does that heartbeat lie? In St. John's Ward, with the newly arrived immigrants exhausted from their journey and terrified of what they might find in their new, safe start? In City Hall, where Horace Milbrook works through the mire of corruption to exact some kind of good and social promise?

An excerpt from a journal Jem is not supposed to be reading

R
ay DeLuca had many wonderful qualities: his loyalty to his family; his quick mind, which allowed him to soak up English and make it his second language; his smile, which, when fully stretched across his face, could force clocks to stop and crocuses to bloom; and his unwavering passion for societal reform.

His temper, on the other hand…

Ray dashed around the circumference of the small room with the air of a perturbed fox. He'd spent the night at Vi's place again, after stopping to bring her dinner and discovering Tony, once again, missing. He couldn't be there all the time, but he would be there as often as he could.

Viola's eyes narrowed at him as she hoisted young Luca higher on her hip. “What's got you so agitated?”

Ray exhaled. He went to the old basin and splashed ice-cold water on his face. At least he felt awake. It was when he caught his reflection in the mirror that it hit him:
St. Joseph's!
He had left his hat there to reserve his space in the crowded bunkroom. There was a sort of collective trust at the house, so he figured it would still be sitting there when he returned. He exhaled.

“Ray?”

“Yes, Viola?”

“You'll see again about a job for Tony?”

Beautiful Viola with her black hair and dark circles around her eyes. In the daylight, he saw bruises that had been cloaked by the darkness of the night before. He took in the absent way her long fingers wound themselves in Luca's small sprout of curls. Beautiful Viola, whom the morning light had once courted so well. Beautiful Viola and her horrid taste in men.

“I'll try, Vi.”

Find Tony a job. If only it were that easy. Ray had played this game before. The first step was always finding Tony at all. The next steps were to convince him to come home to his wife and baby and to not buy liquor with every last penny he made at the roundhouse or the brickworks. Then Ray would have to convince Tony to stop yelling and stop hitting and…

He grabbed an apple from a chipped bowl on their small table and tossed it up and down. “
Ciao
,
mio piccolo anatracoccolo.”
Goodbye, my little duckling. It was what Ray had called Viola since they were children. He kissed her on the cheek and mussed Luca's hair before stepping, coatless, into the September air.

The autumn breeze and the early morning sun drained the last of his frustration. As it did every day, the city talked to him in all the languages of the world. He loved its vivacity and vibrancy, the unending music of footfalls, of trolleys on tracks, of the horses' hooves. He loved hearing the merchants hawking their wares from one side of the bustling street to the other.

As he sloped southward to the harbor, the glistening lake caught the kiss of the sun, and he tuned his ears for the bellow of the ships' arrivals. Ray could imagine the girls in pigtails and the boys playing with yo-yos way back in third class, their parents in overworn outer clothes, threadbare and not warm enough to see them through the onslaught of winter. He could see all of them inching their way toward a new life.

Ray still believed in this new life. Despite the prejudice waiting for all immigrants—including himself—at every corner. Despite the meetings in the back of the new City Hall claiming Canada for Canadians. He believed in it as his mother had, though she had not survived the sea voyage. And he would make the most of her memory, even if it meant continually putting Viola's needs ahead of any chance he could have for a personal life.

“You need to get out more, Mr. DeLuca,” Skip McCoy told him daily. “You're not a bad-looking guy. Some girls will swoon for that accent of yours. They like all the poetic Italian stuff. Go to the dance halls. There's one on Elm Street. I'll take you. Dance a little.
Live
a little. Right now, your primary relationship is the
Hog,
and believe me, it's not worth it. She'll never love you back.”

Ray did as he usually did when Skip had one of these moments: He avoided his eyes and shuffled papers around on his desk and bellowed for another typewriter ribbon.

“I've a nice girl for you.” Even McCormick, the
Hog
's editor, was willing to step up. “You gotta watch that temper of yours and your odd ways, DeLuca. But I know someone from my wife's knitting circle who hires a seamstress. Cute. Catholic girl. You're a little on the short side, but my wife says if you smile more often—full-on smile—the ladies will line up around the block for a glimpse of you. I wouldn't know anything of this kind of stuff myself, mind you. But she says—”

Ray had raised his hand to stop him. His purpose was not to find personal happiness but to keep his sister and nephew's heads above water. He was fortunate enough to do this while scratching out a
living as a second-rate hyperbolic wordsmith. At least the job required words. Ray couldn't live if not by words.

Ray strolled across the red brick road to a warehouse overrun with old printing presses and the smell of ink, ambition, and sweat. These were the crude offices of the
Hogtown Herald.
He made for the tiny lean-to off the furnace room, where his overturned-crate-for-a-chair and table waited. The tabletop was slanted, ink-spotted, and scarred from years of use. His office.

Ray dipped the nib of his pen in a small pot, and the first of the day's many black spots splattered on his hand. He wondered when Miss Watts would come by with his belongings. Merinda Herringford had promised the return of his coat in exchange for the prompt placement of her advertisement.

Certainly the girl wouldn't have had the audacity to go through his coat pockets, would she? Certainly she wouldn't find his journal—and read it. Or
would
she? He already knew she had the nerve to plant herself, broad and brash as can be, under a streetlight clad as a man. She'd pulled off the disguise fairly well, right up until the moment when her drawers had dropped. She certainly hadn't looked like a man in that split second before he'd turned away.

A few hours later, Ray had crafted an editorial piece on Montague's rally and the second corpse that he thought was a cut above the usual muckraking drivel he was known for.
Suspected murderer and mayor, Montague shrouded in secrecy and death.
Ray was inspired, typing swiftly, until he couldn't tell where his fingers left off and the keys of his Underwood began. He was lost in thought when Skip knocked at the wooden beam framing his cubby.

“A young lady to see you, Mr. DeLuca.” His voice was formal. He leaned into Ray's ear. “A very attractive young lady.”

Ray turned around in surprise and found himself facing a beautiful woman, well-dressed and looking at him with bright eyes and a rather flushed face. When their eyes met, Ray blinked several times. This was the awkward and squeaky girl from the other evening? Surely
not, for this was no girl. If ever a figure was worthy of the word
woman,
it was she.

“Thank you very much for loaning me your coat.” She handed him his coat, her cheeks deep red. Doubtless she was playing over the last time they had met.

“You're very welcome, Miss Watts.” He studied her face. “I didn't recognize you.”

She studied him right back. “You're staring at me.”

Ray raised an eyebrow. “You're staring at
me
.”

“Sorry,” she said as a dimple appeared on her right cheek. She was so very pretty. Innocently pretty. Fresh-faced pretty.

He laughed, surprised. “You'll pardon me, but on our previous meeting I didn't see that you were so beautiful.”

Her cheeks flushed deeper red. “Thank you for running our ad,” she said.

“Yes, of course. Anything to get my coat back.” He laughed while noticing her proper, corseted curves and fashionable daysuit. “At least now I know why you were there last night. A lady investigator!” He patted the coat. “Did you happen to find anything in the pocket? When you were”—he held up his sleeve and searched for a phrase—“making my coat smell like flowers?”

Jem smiled and looked away briefly. “Mrs. Malone—my housekeeper—laundered and pressed it. I hope you don't mind. The smell. It's lavender. It's my favorite and… ” She broke off. Ducked her head. “What was in the pocket?”

“My notebook. A diary of sorts.”

“Mrs. Malone would've emptied the pockets before laundering.”

“Of-of course.” he said, a quick response while the severity of the loss hit him. It couldn't cover what he felt at the sudden loss of words gone forever. His last day in Italy. His first day in Toronto. The sights and smells. The slow, arduous task of learning English. He exhaled and ran his hand over his face. Abominable luck. At least…yes, the pocket watch was still there. “Thank you,” he said heavily.

She smiled at him again. Gave him another long look and turned toward the door.

“Wait! Wait a moment!” He liked the way the light played off her high cheekbones when she turned her head over her shoulder. “I want my interview. How did a woman like you end up a lady investigator?”

“All women have secrets, Mr. DeLuca.”

Ray began to think in poetry.
*
This Jemima Watts, she was soft. Her curls were milk chocolate. Her eyes were the persistent kiss of waves on the shore at dusk, their light like sun spilling over water. He loved the way she wrinkled her nose, the way her smile tugged into a solitary dimple in her right cheek.

“You're staring at me again,” said Jem.

“Well, yes,” he said. “I hadn't noticed the other night that you were so beautiful. And now I am forced to wonder about my reporter's powers of observation.”

“Mr. DeLuca, you're a good flatterer.”